We must judge others - or not?

I want to invite you to go to your Bibles in Romans, Chapter 2. We're going to go to Chapter 2 and I just want to pull out some points, some ideas. You will remember that we are studying this epistle to the Romans and due to different commitments and things several weeks have passed.

You may not even remember where the epistle to the Romans is in the Bible, but here we are again to pick it up. You know, there have been many trips and many different commitments but this is an eternal epistle, it has been blessing God's people for two thousand and it is there waiting for us on this day to instruct us and provide principles for our lives as God's people.

I am going to be extracting different passages like this as we go chronologically through this book and touching the points that those passages offer to our life. We are going to read a few representative verses from this Chapter, we are not going to read it all so that we can begin our exploration this morning.

Chapter 2, Romans. It says "....for which you are inexcusable oh man, whoever you are, you who judge."

I think one of the key words there is inexcusable. We will see why in a moment. Another word would be 'whoever wants' too.

“.... whoever you are judging, because in what you judge another you condemn yourself, because you who judge do the same. More we know that the judgment of God against those who practice such things is according to truth."

Let's go further, we go there to verse 5, “.... but because of your hardness and your unrepentant heart you store up wrath for yourself, for the day of wrath and the revelation of righteous judgment of God who will reward each one according to his works. Eternal life to those who persevere in doing well, seeking glory and honor and immortality, but wrath and anger to those who are contentious and do not obey the truth but obey injustice."

Verse 11 says "...because there is no partiality with God"

And then look at verse 17, we are skipping here representative verses of this Chapter. It says here "..... behold, you have the nickname of a Jew and you rely on the law and you glorify yourself in God and you know his will, and instructed by the law you approve the best and trust that you are a guide to the blind , light of those who are in darkness, instructor of the unlearned, teachers of children who have in the law the form of science and truth. You then, who teaches others, don't you teach yourself?, you who preach that one must not steal, do you steal?”

Let's go further to verse 28, it says "... for he who is outwardly is not a Jew, nor is circumcision what is done outwardly in the flesh, but he who is a Jew is inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in spirit, not in letter, whose praise does not come from men but from God."

May the Lord bless his blessed word. Brothers, for many who read this Chapter, for example, and some parts of the first Chapters of Romans, this type of reading can seem very sterile and very specialized. Many of us read those Chapters and in reality we don't really know what they are referring to and we tend to get bored and skip past them. And that is where it is important to have a little idea about the history and the religious and cultural context in which the Apostle Paul writes this epistle and also all of Scripture. In order to read certain passages of Scripture and understand them we have to understand something about their historical and cultural context, and certainly this is one of those passages.

We also sometimes have to understand what is the purpose of the book in general, what is the central argument that runs through all the material that is covered by the book. Romans is a letter that depends a lot on inside knowledge, on the intention of the Apostle, the context in which he writes, the audience for which the letter was intended, and even the personal position and personal experience of Paul himself as a former Pharisee and as a member of a Jewish community, and a member of a Christianity that is still trying to define itself as distinct from Judaism, and trying to find its balance, its identity led by the Holy Spirit.

So all these things are here between the lines, within that Chapter that we just read. We cannot understand it so well if we do not remember what is in the previous Chapter, in Chapter 1. You will remember weeks ago, when we touched on Chapter 1 where the Apostle Paul first, as a lawyer arguing a trial before a jury or before a judge, begins to establish his case, part by part; to assemble a whole framework of logical argument before your listeners or the audience before you.

In the first Chapter, the Apostle Paul launches a withering condemnation against the non-Jewish world, the pagan world, the Greeks, the Romans, all that humanity that does not know God, the monotheistic God, the true God , Jehovah, the Jewish God, and who have been perverted through idolatry making of God images of reptiles and animals, or of men as well; and that they have cheapened, in a sense, they have lowered the dignity, the glory of God because it is more convenient for them to do that. And that they have rebelled against the moral teaching and moral claims of the God who created them. And that as a consequence of their rebellion and their obstinacy in continuing to do the things they want, and that they believe the God that they want to create, then Paul says, God gives them over to a mind, he says, a reprobate mind .

In the original Greek reprobate means a rejected mind, a mind which, once examined, receives a stamp of 'not acceptable'; a mind that has failed the exam, that has not passed the exam, that has not passed quality control. A mind we could say, deficient, a dysfunctional mind, a mind that does not reason correctly and coherently. That is the retribution that God makes against a humanity that persists in sinning and rebelling against the true God.

God tells them, ok, that's what you want to do, so I'm going to leave you to your own reasoning to see what happens. And that mind, then, rejected by God, begins to think in a drunk, crazy, distorted way, and apparently it makes sense, but it's like a computer that's working, but when you put in two and two, it tells you it's seven, and comes out with inadequate results. He reasons in a wild way, morally and in other ways, and then he begins to corrupt everything around him. As the mind is the seat of human legislation, morality, ethics, art, human philosophy; a perverted mind, a dysfunctional mind is going to produce dysfunctional systems.

So, what happens, men are degenerating more and more. When he has distanced himself from God and God has relegated him to his own resources, man, what happens, without the compass and the norm that guides correctly from God and his word, is like a child who goes into the forest and leaves losing and the more he tries to find his way, the deeper he gets into the woods and the more lost he finds himself.

And that is why in Chapter 1 the Apostle Paul, look at verse 26 of Chapter 1, and again we dealt with these things and we were not able to deal with everything but we are making progress. In verse 26 Paul says, for example, "....for this... -remember that he is talking about the world that does not know God, the Greco-Roman world, with its perversions, with its houses of sacred prostitution, with his prostituted religions, with his worship of the perverted gods of Greek mythology, and all of this, he's arguing against them, first of all.

It says, “....for this –verse 26- God gave them up to shameful passions....” –in other words, God abandoned them to passions, that is, to fires, inclinations, needs embarrassing That word is very important. He says, - "....because even their women changed the natural use for that which is against nature", for a fusion, that is to say contrary, outside of nature, of what God has constituted man to exercise according to his physique, according to their biological constitution.

This is very important because one of the clearest arguments against homosexuality is precisely, look at the anatomy of the man, the anatomy of the woman, in their complementarity. Look at the animal kingdom, likewise, at the nature of the biological, and you will clearly see that nature itself screams that the sexual relationship is made to be between a man and a woman, between the male and the female, whether in the animal or in the human world. In the animal kingdom homosexuality is almost non-existent, absolutely. There are cases like that, well... but there is nothing like it in the human kingdom that is... not only being practiced today but also being instituted.

So Paul says, why does he point to the woman here in the first place? And why does he point to homosexuality as the prime example of man's perversion? Because for Paul, there are a lot of people who say, well, if homosexuality isn't worse than any other sin. It is true in an absolute sense of the word, in a sense we would say, ontologically, any sin, your stealing a piece of candy from the supermarket, in terms of violation of God's law is as ontologically serious as killing a man, because it is a violation of divine law.

But nobody tells me that stealing a piece of candy is just as serious in graphic terms as killing a person. right not? So in a sense, of course, adulterating is as sinful as homosexuality, as drunkenness, as lying, as exploiting your neighbor. But there is something in the divine mind, there is something in the biblical mind that rejects that sin as a graphic illustration of estrangement from God.

And even within homosexual behavior there is still something that Paul says, it is worse, and that is that the woman, brothers, the female, the female of the human race, has a modesty that is still a little stronger than the man. The man, the man is a being much more sexualized than the woman, for different reasons, long to explain. Psychology supports that fact.

The male has a stronger sexual tendency, although that is being reprogrammed today, I tell you by the way. Women are sexualizing just as much as men, that's aside. I don't want to get into too much trouble right now. But, naturally, the male tends to be less modest, less careful in his sexual behavior. Throughout history, through the centuries, women have always been seen as more modest, more careful.

So Paul says, 'even their women,' speaking of the Greco-Roman world above all, lesbianism. They have reached such a level of perversion that even women, with their natural modesty, instituted by God, have abandoned it and have also gotten into the cultivation of homosexual practice. That is, it is a graphic illustration of the degree to which human beings can go when they decide to distance themselves from God and begin to reason according to their own principles.

Today, in the 21st century, if you read about Greek culture and Greco-Roman culture, homosexuality is nothing new in human culture. Twenty centuries ago, the first 11 of the first 14 Roman emperors were homosexual, history confirms. In the Greek culture, Plato, Socrates and other great philosophers spoke highly of homosexuality as a very noble practice.

And these things, these constellations of behavior, the development of art, culture, the cultivation of the body, as we have it today, the practice of homosexuality and the exaltation of mind and reason Independent of God, wherever those things are exalted, you are also going to see the growth of homosexuality. And do you also know what he is going to see? The deterioration of the culture and of the nation that practices it and its overcoming by other purer and stronger cultures, which have not been degenerated and weakened by these immoral practices.

Muslim fundamentalism, with all its force and vigour, that threatens to engulf the Western world, and that is being a sting to Western culture, that is the repetition of that pattern. Decaying cultures are attacked and besieged by stronger, more virile cultures that still retain their vigor because they do not engage in the degenerative and debilitating practices of more rationally advanced cultures.

And that is what is going to happen in this nation, that is why we resist these things, because we know their consequences, history suggests it. It's not just a bunch of fanatical people out there, evangelicals, trying to spoil the party for these poor homosexuals and stop them from getting married. It is because we know that there are social, moral, and human structures that, when violated, lead to the destruction of a society. And it is love that leads us to say 'no' to a practice that destroys our children, destroys our family and destroys the foundations of society.

So Paul is saying all that and Paul attacks, we won't go into too many details, because later on he also attacks all kinds of carnality. When man is perverted, he is totally perverted. And that is why in verse 28 of Chapter 1 it says:

“... since they did not approve of taking God into account, God gave them up to a debauched mind to do things that are not convenient, being full of all unrighteousness: fornication, perversity, greed, wickedness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malignity..."

And a list of sins that have occurred and to have including being disobedient to parents appears , and be haughty, insulting, etc. It is not only the homosexual, finally Paul says, look, when humanity begins to become perverted, all the works of the flesh begin to proliferate. It is spring for the flesh and all the sins and all the destructive attitudes that have existed and are beginning to proliferate and flourish in the community, in the culture.

We are not very far into the 21st century, that is one of the things that convinces me so much of the truth of God's word. So, there Paul concludes his attack on a culture far from God, the equivalent today in the 21st century would be those who do not know God, who do not know Christ, who have rebelled against him, have a rational, secularized mind , humanist, rebel against God. And we here in the church say, oh, glory to God because I'm not one of those. I am a hard-core evangelical, and I come to church every Sunday and give my tithes and behave well, etc. etc But you know what? We cannot escape God's judgment either, only by the grace of Jesus Christ, brothers.

And Paul's idea is, he wants to put all mankind under the accusing finger of God, because the Jews when they saw these things and they looked at the Greeks and the Romans, and the pagans and those who they did not know God and they despised them, they hated them. Brothers, hatred and contempt should never fill our hearts against the man who does not know God. Never allow a sense of superiority or religiousness or personal justice to invade your heart.

The word says that if anyone sins, you who are spiritual restore him with a spirit of meekness, seeing that you yourself are not tempted in the same way.

We always have to say, only by the grace of God. And look at the sinner with extreme humility and fear that this could happen to me if it were not only for the grace of Jesus Christ and for the mercy of God. Let's be careful because that is one of the lessons of this Chapter 2, how we point out sin. We must do it with fear and trembling, with extreme humility, looking at ourselves first, and saying, Father, deliver me because I know that I could be there too if it weren't for your grace and mercy.

That is the most important thing, that is what can cure us and take care of us from the cynical attack of the devil. Because when you start, and that's one of the elements of this Chapter 2, to point the finger of judgment—I'm going to clarify what judgment is in a moment—you open yourself up to the devil's cynical attack. The best way to get rid of Satan's attacks is to denounce yourself first, always. And be the first to say, I am a sinner who needs the grace of God and if I did not have the grace of God I would be in hell just like the others, but by the mercy of God and the blood of Christ that washes me and clean I can have access to the throne of God's grace because it is by grace that we are saved. And that is what Paul wants to lead his readers, to understand that, that we are all under the accusing finger of God, some for one thing and others for another.

So, when he finishes denouncing in a totally clear and forceful way the pagan world, rebellious against God, he now goes to the Jews. And so here in Chapter 2, he begins, it's not obvious yet that he's referring to them, but later it's evident that he's going into Chapter 2 here, in this part of his elaboration to talk about those who are religious, those who believe they are better than others.

So it says, so it's inexcusable. That is a theme that is here in this Chapter, the inexcusability of men. One day many people are going to appear before the throne of Grace and they are going to say, oh God, or the throne of judgment and they are going to say, oh I didn't know, my dad abused me or my mom didn't gave enough affirmation, or was sexually abused by a priest, etc. And God will tell him, yes, but you also received a word from my people and from my message about how you could heal yourself and that you could go to my Son and receive healing and you did not. And that in me there was grace to change your behavior and heal your wounds, and straighten your mind and you didn't want to.

On the day of judgment, no one will have an excuse, brothers, no one, because there will be a jury and a judicial system much more powerful than the current one in the modern century, because that judicial system will have access not only to external actions , but the videos of the deepest and most intimate intentions of the heart, the most intimate thoughts, the smallest movements of the soul, the subconscious of man will be there clearly.

That is why no one should dare to think that they can appear before the throne of God and think that only by their own arguments will they get away with it, because God's system is so pervasive that only a remission directly from the blood of Jesus may allow you to be justified before God. No matter how much good you do here on earth, no matter how straight you walk, there will always be sins that God can throw at you and say, that's why you can't enter my kingdom. And you are going to try to argue and you are not going to be able to do it, because against the justice of God no one can.

The word says, so that you may be recognized just in your judgment and considered pure in your words, against you, against you only I have sinned and I have done evil before you, says the psalmist in the psalm 51. Because God will never be neutralized, no man will be recognized as righteous by his own righteousness except by the righteousness of Christ. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, says the word of the Lord.

So Paul is making his case and in Chapter 2 he says here, so it's inexcusable man whoever you are, already there he's starting to make his case against the Jews. Whoever you are... you who judge. The Jewish people were a people that continually judged others. ".... well, what you judge another you condemn yourself because you who judge do the same".

Brothers, there is enough material to instill fear and holy fear in all of us, not to judge. Now, I want to ask a question, what does it mean to judge? Because today we are thrown in the face, when we talk about the sin that is in these laws and all these things and they tell us, you are judging and the Bible says don't judge.

The word has a very complex understanding of what it is to judge. And that word if you trace it through the Bible is a very complex word. Because there are cases where we are told that we can judge, and I can prove it to you.

Look with me, for example, let's go to First Corinthians, Chapter 5, verse 3, so that we understand this when someone tells you, because I always hear that from many evangelicals, and at least if we clarify that today, we have fulfilled our commitment as preachers.

First Corinthians, Chapter 5, verse 3, says here, “...certainly – this is the Apostle Paul, the same one who says not to judge in Chapter 2, speaking of a case of immorality that it had occurred in the Corinthian church and that he had denounced; a man who was living with his father's wife, and he reported it and action was taken. So he writes now, telling them:

“....certainly I as absent in body but present in spirit, and as present I have judged the one who has done such a thing in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ , ye gathered together in my spirit, let such a one be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus."

Paul himself is saying, I have judged this case. Is he contradicting himself? No, what he is saying is that I have critically examined this case in light of the word, and I have objectively concluded that it violates the word of the Lord, and I have made a statement in this regard.

Let's go to another passage, right there in First Corinthians. Let's go to Chapter 6, talking about lawsuits before unbelievers too, that is another very illustrative passage regarding this judging.

Chapter 6, verses 2 and 6, it says here talking about the fights that take place between the Christians in Corinth, that's nothing new, brothers, just in case. And Paul points out, you're fighting, you're taking each other to court, you're suing each other, instead of washing your own dirty laundry inside yourselves, aren't you? and giving bad witness to people.

Verse 2 says, “....do you not know that the saints are to judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge very small things or do you not know that we have to judge angels?"

And in verse 5 he says, “.... to shame you I say it, well what? Is there not a wise man among you, not even one, who can judge between his brothers, but that brother pleads against brother, and this before unbelievers?

He is saying, you can judge each other. Why do they have to go to a secular judge who does not know the word of the Lord? If you one day are going to judge even the angels themselves, they cannot judge on a piece of land or whatever, when you have problems among Christians.

Listen to me if we did that, lawyers would cease to exist in a moment. They would not be necessary if we let ourselves be carried away by the word of the Lord. So what is Paul saying? Are you contradicting yourself when you say not to judge? No, brothers, I believe that when the Bible says, do not judge, it is referring to an attitude that criticizes in a superficial way, in a way of self-righteousness. I judge negatively when I look at someone doing something and say, that pervert, it's good that I'm so different. I would never do that. On the other hand, however, many times I am feeling the same, doing the same or have something worse in my life.

That is why the Lord Jesus Christ said, why don't you first look at the beam that is in your eye before judging the speck that is in your neighbor. In other words, many times the problem with judging in this negative way is that we do it superficially, not thinking about our own frailty, our own sin. And there is a sense of superiority, of self-justice, of attack against the person, of accusation that does not admit grace.

Like the case, for example, of the adulterous woman in which these men wanted to stone her and they were not identifying with the inner drama that was in her. They wanted to kill her but they were not thinking about their own sins. The Lord told them, for this reason, it is good for the one who does not have sin because he casts the first stone, famous words.

In other words, when we see a situation, a behavior that contradicts the word of the Lord, we don't tell them, oh, just live and let live as they say today, don't make a difference between good and evil, each one who does what he wants. That's what people want out there today. That is not what God says, God calls us to call the bad bad and the good good, but to do it in a way that allows for grace, that allows for self-examination. I look at myself first, to allow mercy, to allow humility, to get in tune with the drama of the other person.

If I see a person, for example, immersed in drugs or alcoholism, instead of me saying, ugh, look at that poor devil, that... I hope he never visits my church. I would never do that. That one goes hungry because he wants to, because he feels like it and he's a scoundrel and that's why he's involved in drugs. That kind of judgment is not convenient for the Christian. The Christian sees evil, identifies it and feels fear of God, feels mercy, feels love for the sinner, but does not stop pointing out that it is a sin.

We Christians have nothing, so when I, for example, talk about homosexuality or all these things, it's not that I'm obsessed with it. The word of the Lord indicates that this is not from God, but we have to love the sinner and we have to tell him, in Christ you can have salvation and healing. And we also have to say, Father, keep me and thank you because in your mercy you have not exposed me to these things. Or I didn't have a priest who abused me, or a fleeting encounter with a boy at the age of 8 who left me trapped in the mind of a homosexual or this type of thing. In your grace you saved me.

That is, the sound, biblical judgment is a complex judgment, it is a judgment tempered by mercy, love, humility, self-examination, grace and against that judgment there is no law, brothers, says the word.

If you can identify with that kind of healthy, meek, humble, simple attitude, you are not judging in the negative sense of the word. You are simply making a differentiation between good and evil. Do I understand, brothers? I'm trying to point out something that's quite complex, but very important so that we don't get emotionally bribed today and emotionally blown up by people telling us, oh, you're judging, just because we're calling something wrong, bad and to something that is good, well, that's all.

Let's be sure, though, and that was the problem of the Jewish people. The Jewish people had a sense of superiority, self-justification, entitlement, and contempt against those who did not know the true God. They felt that they were the only ones. And Paul says, that's a lie, you are just as condemnable as the others who don't know God.

Here is also a warning, brothers, against religious hypocrisy, this is very important. Let us guard against religious hypocrisy. The Lord has spoken to me so much about it these days that we have to walk neatly in the ways of the Lord.

If we are going to get into the business of talking about morality, it is better that as they say out there, we are not preaching morality in our underpants. Because you know what? the devil does not forgive, the devil has a clinical eye that penetrates deeply and is a creditor who does not forgive a single debt and who is often waiting for the right moment to charge you with maximum profit and benefit.

This sad case of this well-known preacher here nationally, and I am not mentioning his name out of respect for him and his family, who while preaching and doing so many things against homosexuality and supposedly representing the evangelical people was found involved in a homosexual case, 5 years with a homosexual prostitute. It has done a lot of damage to the nation and the devil is getting a lot out of the carnality of the evangelical people.

In these times, brothers, in which humanity gets more and more into the practice of perversity and sin every day, there is a very clear call to us, to me and to you, that the people of God redouble our purpose to live holy and pleasing lives before God. More than ever we feel the fear of God in our hearts and we say, Father, have mercy on us and deliver us from evil, and help us to walk straight before you.

That means, brothers, that more than ever transparency should be expected from God's people. Continuously denounce ourselves, keep short accounts with God. If you sin, make sure that you immediately confess, repent and rectify your life and get back on the right path, because the enemy will be with his clinical eye looking for the way.

The Bible says that we do not give place to the devil, do not give him a foothold, do not give even a finger to the enemy because the enemy takes everything he can and exploits it to the maximum advantage in our lives. We live in dangerous times, brothers, dangerous times. This is the bad day of which the Apostle Paul speaks in Ephesians 6, and we have to put on the whole armor of God and with terrible humility and with a desire for relentless integrity. And with an attitude of sticking as much as possible to the will and the strict word of God because that is the problem today with the evangelical church. We have started to denounce many things but we are not taking care of our own house and the devil is serving himself with the big spoon.

Don't you see the irony? Until a while ago the big scandals here in the US were preachers and pastors regarding adultery with women. Lately it has been homosexuality. Is that a coincidence? No, it is that the demonic spirit that animates the world, the prince of this century now knows how he has to direct his attacks to neutralize the truth of God that is being preached by the people of God.

So we have to be very careful, brothers, me first, to walk straight before God. This is a message that God is bringing to his people clearly and it is weighing heavily on my heart these days.

And Paul here is very clear in that sense, isn't he? Be careful not to be attacking out there, to the other part of the world that does not know God while we do the same or worse things.

Look at what it says in verse 21, Chapter 2: “... you, then, who teach another, don't you teach yourself? You who preach that one must not steal, do you steal? You who say not to adulterate, do you adulterate? You who abhor idols, do you commit sacrilege? You who boast of the law, by breaking the law you dishonor God, because as it is written the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

I am struck by what he says below. It says ".... because God is no respecter of persons." Brothers, do not think that we can bribe God with our tithes, our praise, our coming to church, our dressing up nicely on Sundays. God is no respecter of people, the soul that sins, that one will die. Whatever a man sows, that will also reap. It is done inside the evangelical church or outside the evangelical church.

This is a clear warning. What moves me most about God and often scares me is his absolutely upright, incorruptible character. He slaps the prettiest, the one he loves the most. To that one, if he has to do it, he does it.

And we have to stop talking, brothers, a lot of evangelical rhetoric but little experience. As I tell you, we have to preach our message to all of us, it involves us all, it involves us all. That is something that comes out of these pages clearly that it is simply, it is experience.

The struggle between James and Paul over law or grace has been discussed many times. Salvation is by works or it is by grace. Well, it's both. Paul argues in the book of Romans that salvation is by grace because no one can be saved by works, but by grace. But at the same time he says, do not believe, because you are in grace you can afford to violate God's truth and behave in a way that contradicts God's character. It is both. It is works in grace, do you understand? It is holiness, after you are in grace and you are saved, God expects you to live a life that is pleasing to him, because now you have the resource of the Holy Spirit that enables you to live a holy life.

A lot of people think, well, because I'm in grace, then I can live however I want. That is a lie from the devil, devilish. All the writers of Scripture reject that idea. There is grace that God gives to reach eternal life, but God then demands that we live as people who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, that we live up to the Gospel and clearly.

As he says for example, I'm done with this, in verse 29 of Chapter 2, he says "but he is a Jew who is inside and circumcision is that of the heart in spirit not in letter".

What you're saying there, brothers, that aspect... there are two things here: the Jew depended on external things, rituals. As there are many evangelicals who simply depend on coming to church, giving tithes, praising, jumping, speaking tongues and having their bows fall off when they are singing and with that they supposedly pleased God. And Pablo says, that is not so, it is not empty rituals. Holiness begins in the heart, the circumcision of the heart, because you circumcise yourself on the outside as the Jews did, it does not mean that you are truly circumcised, you have to circumcise your heart, your mind, your emotions, your appetites. That is the true holiness that pleases the Lord.

Then, from that circumcision of the mind, from that renewed mind, transformed by the word and by the Holy Spirit, good works will be born. And that is what pleases the Lord. It's not that God doesn't like that... let's be clear, you must tithe, brothers, don't leave here thinking you won't. But the Bible says that if all you do is tithe and your heart and your actions don't reflect what that action implies, don't dress like you're not going. Because God is not deceived or bribed by external things.

And that's not only from the New Testament but that's in the Old Testament. I leave you with a reading here from Deuteronomy because God has always reasoned in the same way. It's not like God a thousand years later says, oh, now I have more experience so I'm going to change my values. God is the same yesterday, today, for all centuries.

In Deuteronomy, back in the Old Testament, look at what it says in Chapter 10, verse 12. It says “.....now then, Israel, what does the Lord require of you but that you fear the Lord? your God, that you walk in all his ways and that you love him and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes that I command you today so that you may prosper.

Verse 16 “…circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, for the LORD our God is God of Gods and Lord of Lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no favoritism or takes bribery”

In other words, you can't be bribed, don't take a bite, as the Mexicans say, to God because he won't accept it. The only thing that to the contrite and humiliated heart you will not despise, your oh God. Holocausts have not pleased you, says the word of the Lord, the only thing that touches the heart of God is a fragile, tender heart, touched by the holiness of God and that knows and recognizes. As the psalmist David says, have mercy on me O God according to the multitude of your mercy, erase my sins and my offenses.

It is very complex, brothers, to walk in the ways of the Lord and at the same time it is also simple. Let us first give the Lord our hearts, our minds. Let us live with a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to the Lord. That is our true worship, says Romans 12, verse 1.

And let us always remember, let us look first at our own frailty, our humanity, our sin, our inherent capacity to offend God and do everything possible to live lives that exemplify the height, the nobility of the Gospel. And when we look at sin in others, let us do it with mercy, with love, with fear and trembling.

People of God, God calls you, he calls me, he calls us to sanctify ourselves, to abandon a superficial evangelical life and to adopt the holiness that befits a people redeemed by blood that cost a lot, a lot, a lot. Against that attitude, against that conduct, against that people, the devil and his demons will never be able to prevail.

The gates of hell will never prevail against a church that is broken, crucified, humbled before God, and eager to live up to God's character.

May the Lord wish that today this call to coherence, to consistency in behavior becomes powerful in our lives, may the Lord touch us with his holy fear.

Stand up this morning and let's humble ourselves before God. We are going to recognize that we have all failed, we have all failed, we have all failed the exam. There is a big F on my test that says, 'you failed,' and only by my grace can you now enter my kingdom.

Walk lightly on this earth and be careful what judgments you make and the assertions you make. And redouble your intention to serve me, obey me and walk according to my commandments because I am not a respecter of persons. I have to condemn sometimes and it hurts my heart to do so, but I do it because I cannot violate my justice. But I want, in your repentance, in your humility, in your recognition of sin, there I want to move and heal you and put you back in perfect communion with me.

So, Father, we acknowledge this morning, we have sinned against you, we have offended you, Lord. We have broken your law. We are no better than those out there. The only thing that he recommends to us is the blood of Jesus and his name that we have adopted in our favor for the remission of our sins. Have mercy on us, oh God.

According to the multitude of your mercies, erase our rebellions, wash us more and more of our wickedness and cleanse us of our sin, because we recognize our sins. Our offense is always before us, Lord.

Praise your name. Have mercy on this world, Father. Help us to be lights in this humanity that has lost its course, has lost its way, Father. That we can shine like a city set on a mountain, Father, for our conduct of life and for the beauty that you make dwell among us, Lord, through the cleanliness that is in your word, Father, in the beginnings of your kingdom .

We adore you, Lord, this morning and we bless you. Keep us from evil, Father. Keep us from evil, Lord. Your word has promised, a thousand will fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come to you. We claim that word for our lives, our children, our family, our marriage, our ministry, Lord, our church, in the name of Jesus. Do your work, Father, your strange work in this humanity in the 21st century, Father. It starts here in Boston.

We adore and bless you, Lord. We take your word, Father. We don't want to slip away from it, or escape from it, we receive it head-on. Come in and penetrate and do your work in us. Thank you Lord, in the name of Jesus. We adore you, Lord. Amen. Amen.